2011 a year to be remembered

Kiana Brown

Kiana Brown won
the KIDZ Star USA Talent Search. It was announced at an assembly at
Mountain Pointe on Friday.

Darryl Webb

Bowls commemorate 9/11

Desert Vista sophomore Ivy Richey 15, prints the name of a 9/11
victim inside a bowl that Desert Vista teacher Mark Honaker made.
Students were given names of victims to imprint in the bowl.
Honaker made ten bowls and printed 330 names in each bowls. Honaker
and at least 70 Desert Vista High School student volunteers hosted
a 9/11 anniversary event open to students and the public. Sept 8,
2011 Darryl Webb/AFN

Related Stories

Before we wave goodbye to 2011 and welcome in
another year, here’s a look back at some of the noteworthy stories
that happened in and around the Ahwatukee Foothills community.

As we have come to expect, 2011 showed how
dedicated to charity and helping other is to the people in this
community, no matter how old you are. Local elementary, middle and
high schools dug in and, for the most part, did it all on their
own. One example is back in May, the students at Kyrene Altadena
Middle School raised more than $12,000 for the organization Feed My
Starving Children. The money allowed them to pack close to 58,000
meals at the packing plant in Tempe, which the organization will
ship to underdeveloped countries around the world.

“It was inspiring to learn about what is going
on in the rest of the world so we wanted to help out in any way we
could,” said Hannah Dooley, 12, a student at Altadena.

On that same note, the Tempe location of FMSC
was named one of just six permanent packing locations in the United
States and was the first outside of the Midwest, where the
organization was founded.

The grown-ups in Ahwatukee Foothills fared
just as well this year. Thousands of dollars were raised throughout
the year to benefit a variety of causes, from breast cancer to
local food shelters and more.

For the second year, Team THRIVR and its
Ahwatukee Foothills players once again raised the most amount of
money out of all teams in Arizona to the tune of $126,000. The
money was raised for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, a
60-mile walk spread out over three days.

Mountain Pointe and Desert Vista High School
students also got into the fight against cancer. The cosponsored
Relay for Life brought in about $145,000 for the American Cancer
Society this year. That amount was the second highest raised by any
Relay for Life high school event in the country and earned
recognition from the American Cancer Society.

“We wish we had that same support that we get
in Ahwatukee Foothills at other high schools,” said Michelle Broek,
spokesperson for the American Cancer Society. “Their event is
definitely highly regarded in the larger Relay network in Arizona.
It’s really great to think how they get so many people
involved.”

The high schools made a lot of noise in the
community outside of fundraising as well. Desert Vista High School
received the A+ School of Excellence award by the Arizona
Educational Foundation (AEF) and Dr. Anna Battle was named State
School Principal of the Year by the National Association of
Secondary School Principals. Mountain Pointe received the A+ award
in 2010.

“It was a wonderful experience,” Battle said
in an email. “The teachers, students, staff, administration and
parent organizations of Desert Vista all were represented and truly
excited about the accomplishments of this amazing institution. God
has blessed me to serve such an amazing community.”

The accolades continued to roll in for the
Thunder. They won their second consecutive Division 1 Arizona State
Marching Band Championship (out of only the three years the award
has been in existence) and then took home the state championship in
football.

“It’s the first time in the state something
like this has happened and it’s a neat feeling because (football
coach Dan) Hinds and I were hired at the same time (in 2002),” band
director Josh Thye said. “It has been a great experience working
with him and the support goes both ways.”

Mountain Pointe made national news twice in
recent months. In September, the school was one of only four
schools nationwide to win the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts National Schools of Distinction in Arts Education
Award. The honor was given to schools with innovative art programs
that are successful in individual areas such as theater, dance,
vocal performance, drawing and painting.

“It validates the hard work everyone has done
to create these programs,” principal Bruce Kipper said. “We have
made a concerted effort to build these programs in a unique way...
Whether (a student) wants to be a painter, chef or a computer
person, we know they will be taking classes useful to them. The
idea is that every kid has an individual learning plan.”

Freshman student Kiana Brown won the KIDZ Star
USA Talent Search, picked from an original field of 45,000
contestants. She received a record contract with RCA Records and
will appear in a music video, a commercial and contribute to the
“KIDZ BOP 21” CD.

“It was a crazy moment and I can’t really get
my mind to process what has happened,” Brown said after a
school-wide assembly to celebrate her win in late October.

On a more somber note, the country also paid
homage to the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept.
11, 2001. Mark Honaker, ceramics teacher at Desert Vista High
School, and his students went all out in their effort to remember
the events of that day.

Honaker transformed his room at DV into a
living, breathing 9/11 experience complete with actors dressed as
firefighters and civilians going around the room like it was the
stairwell in the twin towers.

“My brother was a Tempe firefighter and my
motivation is to the firefighters,” Honaker said. “To me, this is
about who rose up and responded (on Sept. 11, 2001).”

Past and present Ahwatukee Foothills resident
veterans came into the spotlight for creating organizations to aid
their fellow servicemen and women. Anthony Ameen used his
experience in fighting for his military and governmental benefits
to start an organization called Wings for Warriors. He sees his
organization as a way to teach returning veterans what kinds of
resources are available if they come back wounded and fighting for
the benefits they are entitled to receive.

“They make you fight for it (claims)...and
everyone who calls me (veterans) is griping and complaining about
the same thing,” said Ameen, who has had a number of surgeries and
lost his left leg from the knee down. “I had 18 to 20 surgeries in
that first year (after losing his leg). My parents would fly to San
Antonio with a day’s notice. It definitely wasn’t cheap. And
parents want to be there when their kid has surgery.”

The year was full of positive experiences
created out of the hard work and dedication of individual and
groups of community members. We can close the book on 2011 and look
forward to the opportunities for success in 2012.